


System Error

by Barkour



Series: Barkour sampler [8]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Bluepulse Bash, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the scarab crashes, it shuts Jaime down, too. Bart will do anything, turn to anyone to save him, if Jaime and the scarab can last long enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	System Error

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Bluepulse Bash, Day 1: "Crash." This fic contains spoilers for all of season two of Young Justice and it might not make a whole lot of sense if you haven't seen all of it, so watch yourself, friend.

1

He dropped out of the sky like a stone tossed out over a deep trench. Lucky for his conscience the suit failed over an unpopulated stretch of the Atlantic Ocean and not near one of the great cities.

La’gaan heard Conner shout, “Beetle’s down,” and then Jaime broke through the water. His shadow spilled out beneath him, dark shafts that faded as he sank, weighted by his armor.

“Yeah,” La’gaan said, swimming toward him, “I got the guppy.”

“I’ve lost his mental transmission,” said M’gann, lowly as when she frowned. “I’m going to try to reestablish the link.”

He caught Jaime, grabbing him under the shoulders. His face was bare; the armor had broken away. A few scattered bubbles escape his open mouth, and then his chest swelled. La’gaan’s gills fluttered.

“Pepidi,” La’gaan swore. He began kicking for the surface. “I need the bioship. He’s breathing water. That’s bad for you landfolks, right?”

“I’m bringing her around,” said M’gann immediately. “Matching your coordinates.”

“Thanks,” said La’gaan, and he swallowed the soft _angelfish_ unspoken in his throat.

“What about his suit?” Conner demanded.

La’gaan swallowed another thing, this one not so soft. Cradling Jaime, he pushed up through the remaining few meters and onto the protracting scoop the bioship offered. The scoop pulled back into the ship, dropping them onto the deck.

Jaime fell limply to the floor. The suit had gone entirely, so that he was naked there but for a pair of soaked boxers. His eyes stared, unseeing, at the ceiling. He wasn’t breathing.

“La’gaan, move,” said M’gann, so he moved. Water droplets scattered as he scattered.

She bent over Jaime, her hands at his chest and her ear – something she had shaped only that moment – at his mouth. La’gaan flexed his fingers. Useless, again.

“You aren’t useless,” said M’gann quietly, then she pinched Jaime’s mouth and pressed hers to his, sealing their lips and breathing in. She continued speaking psychically: “I need you to fly the bioship to the nearest Zeta platform.”

“Not to the Watchtower?” He took her seat at the helm.

She lifted her head and began doing compressions again.

“It’ll take too long to fly there. He’s not breathing. He needs medical attention now.”

The nearest Zeta was on the Maryland coast. La’gaan directed the bioship that a ways and poured on as much speed as she could manage.

“Opening the hatch,” M’gann said before she sealed her mouth over Jaime’s again.

Conner came up the hatch, shirt burnt all down the right side. Under other circumstances, La’gaan would have made a crack about shirts of steel, but M’gann said, “I need you to do chest compressions,” and Conner dropped to his knees beside her.

The bioship ate the miles of ocean till the coastline crept up the horizon. At La’gaan’s back, there on the ground, Jaime suddenly coughed and vomited water.

“Is he okay?” La’gaan called. “You scared us, buddy—”

Then M’gann made a sound like a knife in the throat and pulled back. Conner caught her in his arm and held her up even as he was rubbing at Jaime’s chest. La’gaan’s palm rose up off the right steering orb.

“Keep flying,” M’gann said, and it rang in his head, too. “I’m fine. Jaime’s the one who—” She broke off.

“What’s wrong?” Conner asked, in that firm voice that made La’gaan want to haul off and sock him right in his lousy, super face.

But that wasn’t La’gaan’s business anymore, and chum and shark bait, Beetle was still lying there, staring up with his face slack and his mouth slick. Guilt gnawed at La’gaan’s fins. He half-expected or maybe just wanted M’gann to say something to him, to tell him to be at ease, to back off, but she only touched her brow and looked down at Jaime.

“He’s not,” she said. “Well—I’m pretty sure he’s in there, but it’s like—there’s static, and it’s so loud, I can’t get through it.”

Conner petted her shoulder. La’gaan looked fixedly away, at the rapidly approaching mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. A sideways twist of his thumb camouflaged the bioship.

“You can,” Conner said.

“No,” said M’gann, and there was a sharpness to her now. “I _can’t_.”

“Can’t,” said Conner, quietly now, “or won’t? M’gann, this isn’t like—”

“I know it isn’t,” she cut him off. “But you don’t understand. I can’t get through it.”

“We’re here,” said La’gaan, cutting them both off. He brought the ship down outside an abandoned industrial complex, where a Zeta platform was hidden in an old and rusted tool shed.

Standing up, he went to collect Jaime, if he could. But Conner was ahead of him on that, too. Rising from his crouch, Superboy hoisted Jaime easily in his arms. Jaime’s head hung. His eyes still stared. Something crept up the back of La’gaan’s throat.

“What happened up there?”

M’gann shook her head as she made to follow Conner out the bioship. “Nothing, until Jaime fell. Then the sentries—”

Her mouth creased. La’gaan’s gut hurt. Angelfish—but she wasn’t that anymore, was she?

She touched La’gaan’s arm briefly and smiled at him.

“Thank you for flying, La’gaan,” she said. Then her fingers slipped away.

“No problem,” he said, even as his gills itched. He looked out at Conner and Jaime, so suddenly and weirdly lifeless even as he breathed.

“KF’s not gonna like this,” said La’gaan.

2

Conner and La’gaan reported the findings from their reconnaissance mission to Kaldur while M’gann stayed with Jaime in the sick bay. She had remained largely out of the way while the limited medical staff aboard the Watchtower worked to fix him on life support. Floating overhead, she did what she could to monitor and maintain his heart, to pull what vomit he’d aspirated from his lungs. All through this that awful droning beat at her; even when she tried to sever the link between them, it persisted.

Then the medical staff cleared the room, one by one, and M’gann remained. She prodded carefully around the edges of that – static, that strangeness that had swallowed up Jaime’s mind. If she pushed harder—she did not dare. She ghosted her fingers over his face, feeling not the skin or the muscle or the bone beneath both, but the life still in him.

Perhaps it was not him, that buzzing. The scarab advised him, Jaime had told Conner. Was it sentient, too? M’gann studied the regulated rise and fall of his chest. If it was sentient, she could not detect that presence.

The sudden displacement of air rocked her; and then there was a boy in yellow leaning over Jaime at the head of the bed.

“What happened to him? Is he okay? Of course he’s not okay. What’s wrong? Who did this?” His voice ramped up.

More noise washed over her psychically, images instead of words, many of them Jaime or involving Jaime. Emotion came with the noise; she’d left herself open. M’gann closed.

La’gaan had been right. Kid Flash didn’t like it. Some indefinable pain stuck at M’gann. She hadn’t been close to Wally, not for years and never as close as he’d wanted, but—But. He’d gone.

Now it was Bart in yellow, Bart who had pulled off the goggles and peeled back the mask so that his pale face was exposed. He moved quickly, brushing the tube leading from Jaime’s mouth, looking at the monitor that displayed his heart rate, touching, for a moment, Jaime’s upturned arm at the elbow where the IV was secured.

“What can I do?” he asked. His gloved hand lingered at Jaime’s naked wrist.

“There’s nothing you can do,” said M’gann softly.

But he shook his head at this, as if by shaking it as quickly as he could, he could change the truth of it. She wondered if perhaps she envied such willful self-deception now; that wasn’t the sort of thing she liked to think of these days.

“No,” he said, “no way, there has to be something I can do, I didn’t change all this just so he’d end up like—” He gestured.

“He’s in a coma,” said M’gann. She would have set her fingers against Jaime’s temple – she thought to do it, to feel again – but she was remembering how Bart had touched Jaime, that little sweep of his fingertips down Jaime’s still arm. She didn’t touch Jaime.

“So can’t you wake him up?” That static droning gained a counterpoint: Bart tapped his feet in rapid opposition. “Use your telepathy to do a hard reboot. Can you do that?”

She pinched her lips. The memory was on her, of a time long ago when Superboy had been stripped of his own mind and made feral. Again, she pushed into Jaime’s mind; but that white roar pushed her out again.

M’gann tightened her hand on the metal bed frame and said, “No. I can’t. I’m sorry, Bart.”

“There has to be something!” He paced around the room, and then he was by Jaime again, as if drawn. “He said the scarab was working with him now, that they were partners—the scarab’s his friend; it wouldn’t do this.”

“How,” M’gann started; then she caught the rest on her teeth. He wasn’t talking to her.

She had thought Bart like Wally, but then, she had thought little on Bart in the time since he had joined the team. Other concerns had consumed her. How young was Bart? He was very small and he skittered around like Gar did. Then he stopped by Jaime again and crouched by the bed, and Bart’s hand crept up over the edge to cover Jaime’s palm.

“Sometimes if my collar broke a certain way,” Bart said, muffled with his mouth against the mattress, “it hurt so bad I couldn’t think or move or do anything. Definitely not crash. Even my brain slowed down. And the Reach meat wouldn’t help. They didn’t even have brains.”

“Your collar?” Absently M’gann felt at her clavicle through her shirt. She was thinking of broken things.

“Inhibitor collar,” Bart clarified.

“They made you wear them?”

“Ye-up,” said Bart easily enough. “Every day. After they caught me. I wasn’t as fast then.”

He withdrew his hand from Jaime’s. His fingers slid over Jaime’s palm and then down the side of the bed, and Bart let his hands fall between his knees. He turned his face up to her. He had a look, the sort of look she’d seen somewhere else.

“There has to be something I can do,” said Bart. His brow was narrowed. His jaw jutted out. It was the look Iris West-Allen had when she went in for the kill in an interview.

“There isn’t,” said M’gann sharply. “Not right now.”

She wasn’t about to let this kid do something reckless when they didn’t know where to start. The temptation to push the thought on him – be still, stay here, don’t move – rose up. She quashed it.

Resting his chin on the mattress, he turned away from her and to Jaime again. His fingers drummed against the metal frame. The bed quivered.

M’gann said, “Don’t shake him.”

Bart stopped. The movement transferred to his heels. He bounced up on them then came down again.

“What if the scarab broke?” he asked. “It’s linked to his nervous system. The Reach used it to take over his body when they put it on mode. Do you think it could crash his brain?”

That was it. M’gann closed her eyes and reached mentally for Jaime. That horrid, crackling nothing poured over her, as if she were drowning not in water but in stone, silent but grinding too, loud enough to deafen. She heard her hearts pumping, her organs working, the synaptic firing in her brain, and still that constant droning; but in the moment before she withdrew, she thought she saw a shape through it.

Then she was out.

Kid Flash was holding her arms. The ceiling was very far above her. Her back chilled; she was lying on something very hard and very cold. She thought it was Wally who held her, thought, too, that he was about to make a joke about M’gann falling into his arms. Then she remembered: That was five years ago.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

She sat up on the floor, pulling free of Bart. He didn’t cling to her though he did linger close, looking to her and then to Jaime. His mouth was screwed up.

“Is he…”

He’d a calmness she hadn’t expected; or perhaps it was blankness. Five years ago, she might have pushed.

Now, she only said, “He’s in there,” and she smiled at Bart to reassure. That was the lie. Perhaps it had been Jaime under that. Perhaps it had been only a shadow.

“If he’s in there,” said Bart, looking at Jaime with hard and narrowed eyes, “then there has to be something we can do for him. If it’s the scarab—” His gaze flicked. He was working his jaw very quickly. “If it crashed—” His thumb came up. He began biting at the tip, the nail, through the glove.

“You said it’s attached to his nervous system,” said M’gann gently.

He dropped his thumb and his eyes, too. “It didn’t work so well last time we tried to cut the scarab out of him anyway.”

“But if it is the scarab, and if this continues, that won’t be safe for him either. Human minds,” she said, thinking, “are very fragile. Maybe—”

Bart stood. He touched his fingertips to Jaime’s hand again, only fleetingly this time.

“I have an idea,” he said; and then he was gone.

3

“We left the Reach’s colonizing party to Rimbor,” John said.

The kid had come up to him, asking questions at near to a mile a minute till John had talked him back down to human speed. Now Kid Flash folded his skinny arms and tipped his head to one side like a little dog and said, “So bring them back,” like it was as simple as that.

John sighed and shook his head. “We can’t do that. I can’t do that. Once they’re in Rimbor’s court system, they’re staying there.”

“You’re a Green Lantern!” said Kid Flash. He threw his arms out wide toward the panel of windows looking out into space. “You guys are like the space cops. You patrol, like, the whole universe, right?”

“We patrol the galaxy,” John corrected him. “I patrol this sector.” Now _he_ folded _his_ arms. “But that doesn’t give the Corps the leeway to disregard any judicial system we please. Rimbor’s courts are out of our jurisdiction.”

“Well, I guess that explains where you guys were,” Kid Flash muttered, not that John knew what that meant. He had an idea, though, from what Barry had said when he’d explained how it was he had a teenage grandkid running around.

“This is about Blue Beetle,” said John.

The kid stared at him, momentarily wide-eyed, and then he nodded. John had an idea about that, too. Martian Manhunter had passed the word on when he handed monitor duty over to John.

“Miss Martian thinks it might be the scarab,” Kid Flash said, “and I think she’s probably right. I mean, technology breaks, right?” His hand came up to his neck then he lowered it. “Plus the scarab’s been here on Earth for thousands of years and according to the Reach it was damaged, so—”

“Slow down,” said John, not unkindly. “You’re slurring again.”

The kid looked momentarily sheepish. “Sorry,” he said. John wondered if he knew he’d forgotten to pull his mask up.

Then the kid’s face went strange again and he looked away, to the expanse of stars outside the Watchtower, beyond the scope of their own small sun. He was just a kid, after all. Small and gangly, too young to be fighting the way he did. John had stopped arguing that point with the rest of the League a while ago, but privately he still thought all the kids were too young for this.

There was something, though, something about the way the kid’s mouth pulled down at the corners. It wasn’t fear and it wasn’t anger, but just worry, plain and simple, and it reminded John of another time. He’d looked out at stars like that once.

“All right,” John said, thinking of Katma. “I’ll get someone to cover for me, and I’ll head out to Rimbor. I might be able to get an audience with the Reach’s scientist.”

“I’m going with you,” said Kid Flash, nearly before John had finished.

“How old are you?”

He stuck his chin out. “Old enough. Jaime’s my best friend. And it’s—” He flushed. “Maybe I could have—”

“It’s not your fault,” John told him. Guilt was irrational, but John knew it, too, better than some.

“I want to help him,” said the kid. He stuttered on the last word, as if it were an admission.

John figured he had a good idea about that, too. Well, if they were old enough to fight. Still. John considered the distance between Earth and Rimbor and the maximum speed his ring could maintain with extra weight—with a kid. He didn’t like it.

“Please,” said Kid Flash. His mouth was thin and his jaw set. He looked, suddenly, older than his, what, eleven years? Almost fifteen if you ignored how outsized his hands and feet were, like a puppy that hadn’t even started teething.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like your grandma?” John asked him.

The smile that ran over the kid’s face made him young again. “Really? Like Grandma Iris? You think so?”

“Get permission,” John said. “If Jay and Joan say you can go—”

The kid was already out of his sight. The Zeta tube flashed yellow, and the automated outgoing alert sounded.

John rubbed at his forehead. His shoulders already ached. Barry was steady enough and Iris was always sweet, and God bless ‘em, but John didn’t have a whole hell of a lot of experience wrangling kids. He’d always thought the underage sidekick thing was inviting trouble. That Batman had even taken on another after Jason had died—

The stars were the same as they always were. John watched them, steady across the implacable reaches of space known and unknown. If Katma had lived, could they—? That was an old, tired what if, one he should have retired years ago. When she’d lived they’d never even discussed children. They’d been young themselves. Too young for kids, he’d thought.

John roused and then hit the button to broadcast to all Leaguers. “John Stewart. I need someone to fill in for me on the Watchtower. I’d like to talk to Icon, too.”

4

November 11, it snows in El Paso. Jaime knows the date because he has a math test he’s studied for all week. When it snows, the schools close. El Paso isn’t used to snow, and this one’s a “whopper,” the lady on GBS says.

Milagro frowns at the TV. “It’s a cheeseburger?” Milagro is only five. Sometimes she doesn’t know things.

“That means it’s grandísimo.” Jaime spreads his arms wide to show her just how big.

“Oh,” says Milagro. “Why’s she not say that?”

“She doesn’t know how to say it right,” Jaime tells her, and Milagro nods thoughtfully.

“Look at this!” Mom peers out the windows. “Ay, tan extraño—have you ever seen this?” 

Dad shakes his head slowly. He’s at Mom’s back with his chin on her shoulder and his hand on her hip.

“No, never.”

“It must be two feet of snow!”

Jaime gets up and looks out the window, around their legs. Dad glances down at Jaime and then smiles at him.

“I’m gonna go outside,” Jaime announces. He turns.

“Yo, también!” Milagro shouts. “Outside!”

“Not without your jackets,” Mom warns. “Jaime—help your sister with her jacket—”

He wrestles her away from the door. Milagro shouts, “Outside, outside, wanna go,” and fights Jaime as he walks her to the coat closet.

“What is it?” Mom is asking.

Dad says, “Maybe it’s that Mister Freeze—”

“No, no,” says Mom, “he’s in that prison, that—” She makes a winding up gesture.

“Arkham?”

“No, the one in Louisiana or Mississippi, you know, down South.”

“Ah!” says Dad. “Belle Reve.”

“Milagro’s ready,” Jaime says. He grabs his own jacket out of the closet and chases after her. She’s off, off and running for the front door. He pulls the sleeves up his arms and fumbles for the zipper.

“Rain boots!” Mom shouts, but Milagro is already plowing through the snow. It isn’t two feet, not really. Maybe a foot and a half. It comes up past Milagro’s waist but she keeps going.

The snow falls wet against Jaime’s face. He sticks his tongue out to catch it. Milagro says, “Jaime, Jaime—” and she grabs at his hands to pull him out with her. Beyond his little sister the world is strange and white, the neighboring houses faint silhouettes. He hears a distant droning. He wonders if snow is supposed to sound like that.

The living room is warm. The GBS reporter, Cat Grant, says, “Well, this snowstorm’s covering pretty much the whole continental US. It sure is a whopper.”

“It’s a cheeseburger?” asks Milagro. Her nose wrinkles. She’s only five. Sometimes she doesn’t understand things.

“That means it’s grandísimo,” Jaime explains. He holds his hands far apart to demonstrate.

“Oh.” Milagro pulls her mouth to the side. “Why’s she not say that?”

“She doesn’t know how to say it right.”

Mom is at the window, staring up at the grey sky. “Look at this! Ay, tan extraño—have you ever seen this?”

“No, never.” Dad looks over her shoulder. He’s pressed to her back, the way he does sometimes when he wants to kiss Mom’s cheek as she cooks.

“It must be two feet of snow!”

Jaime goes to stand. Something warm touches his cheek, but there’s nothing there. He presses his fingers to his face. 

"Yo, también!" Milagro says, but Jaime says nothing. Maybe Mom, he thinks— Then Milagro heads toward the door, shouting, "Outside!

“Not without your jackets,” Mom says. “Jaime—help your sister with her jacket—”

He’s walking Milagro to the closet, his knees prodding her back so she keeps moving even though she windmills. It was a hand, he thinks. Someone else touched his face. He wonders who it was. Someone warm. 

He pulls Milagro’s jacket out of the closet. She sticks her arms up for him to put it on her. She’s beaming at him. A new incisor is growing in where she lost the baby tooth.

“No,” says Mom, “the one in Louisiana—”

Another warm touch, this one softer, briefer, pressed against the corner of his mouth and then gone. Like a kiss. 

He zips up Milagro’s jacket. He doesn’t recognize his hands. Outside, it’s snowing. It doesn’t snow in El Paso, not like this. On November 11, it does. He remembers that.

“Milagro’s ready,” Jaime says. He grabs his own jacket from the closet as Milagro toddles hastily off. 

“Rain boots!” Mom leans out the front door after Milagro, but it’s too late.

Jaime goes out into the snow. It falls cold on his face, and someone whispers, “I’ll be back in a flash. I promise,” and their breath is warm against his ear.

“Jaime,” says Milagro, “Jaime—” She takes his hands and draws him out into the snow, into the rushing white.

It’s November 11. Jaime’s sitting with his little sister on the floor in front of the TV. Cat Grant points to a map of the USA, whited out, and says, “It sure is a whopper.” 

“It’s a cheeseburger?” Milagro asks, confused.

Jaime says, “That means it’s grandísimo,” and shows her by expanding his arms to encompass as much of the room as he can. 

“Oh,” says Milagro. “Why’s she not say that?”

He shrugs. “She doesn’t know how to say it right.” That’s good enough for Milagro.

“Look at this!” Mom watches the snow falling in thick flakes, like static on the local TV channel late at night. “Ay, tan extraño—have you ever seen this?” 

It’s snowing in El Paso.

5

The High Judge did not appreciate barbarians demanding audiences with him at all hours of the day. They did not even have the base dignity to bring appeasements! But the small one—that was the great insult.

“You dare wear the colors of the Sinestro Corps?” the High Judge thundered.

The small one did not quaver as it should have. It just looked down at its weak chest.

“The colors of the who what?” it asked. It pointed to its breast. “These are the Kid Flash colors.”

Then the Green Lantern—and he’d seen it create constructs so he couldn’t have it arrested for false presentation—tapped the small one’s chest and the yellow went out of its wear.

“Our apologies for the insult,” said the Icon gravely. “We were unaware.” He looked to the Green Lantern.

“The Guardians haven’t heard that the Sinestro Corps have reached Rimbor,” said the Lantern.

The High Judge sniffed and rubbed at his nose. “Word of them has reached Rimbor. You Earthlings are pest enough.” He eyed them. And such grubby, cheap things, too!

“If you have any trouble with the Sinestro Corps,” the Lantern began.

“The Sinestro Corps isn’t threatening us with the Warworld,” the High Judge snapped.

“Vandal Savage operates apart from the Justice League,” said the Icon, “and apart from Earth’s governments.”

The High Judge folded his hands together over his belly. “But he speaks for you all.”

“Vandal Savage speaks for Vandal Savage,” said the Icon, and the High Judge had to allow that he was calm even with the evidence of the Warworld in orbit. “He does not speak for us.”

“So, out with it,” said the High Judge. “I have more pressing matters of the law to deal with than whatever you common criminals have come for.”

“As I recall,” said the Lantern with undue severity, “the Justice League was cleared of all the charges.”

“Ask him about the Reach,” demanded the small one. He turned his hideous, pale gaze on the High Judge. “Where’d you put them? Where’s the Reach’s scientist? We need to talk to her like ten seconds ago.”

It was shocking rudeness, such an interruption, such a direct address from one so evidently inferior even to a Lantern. The High Judge recoiled from it.

“Control your pet,” commanded the High Judge, “or I will have him charged with obstruction.”

“He has done nothing to prevent your honor from executing the law,” said the Icon smoothly. Behind him, the Lantern made a quieting gesture at the child, and it receded, though those awful, glassy eyes remained fixed on the High Judge. “But we have come to ask for an audience with the Reach envoy’s Science Director.”

“I pardon you out of my generosity,” said the High Judge, “and you Earthlings return to demand more of me?”

“Only to speak with a prisoner,” the Icon continued, “one we captured for you and delivered to Rimbor.”

“And where else would you have taken them?” The High Judge sneered at them. “Oa cannot take the Reach. And your planet is so backwards you could never hold them.”

The child burst out again: “If we don’t talk to her, someone could die. Someone very important! He’s a hero!”

The High Judge turned his hand up. “The death of an Earthling means nothing to this court.”

The child’s teeth flashed. It said, “You’re wrong—” and though the High Judge had executed some for lesser crimes, he had to laugh at this.

“Barbarians, indeed!” said the High Judge. “No wonder the Reach meant to eradicate you. Your planet is wasted.”

The Lantern grabbed the child by the shoulder, as if to hold it back. How amusing! As if some Earthling brat could hurt the High Judge.

“Stay, Bart,” said the Lantern to the little one in warning. 

The High Judge shifted in his throne. The court crier was gesturing to him; the cases were backing up. This had been amusement enough.

“You’ve entertained me,” the High Judge allowed. “But I do have work.”

“Perhaps we could make an exchange,” said the Lantern, still holding the child by the shoulder.

“Of what?” asked the High Judge. “Have you brought something to argue your case?” As he recalled it, the Earthlings were rather backwards. Smooth-talking and poor.

The Icon stepped forward to speak softly to the Lantern. Imitating disinterest, the High Judge strained to hear; he could not. No doubt the Earthlings practiced their sly pitches to each other all the time, the better to avoid the real consequences of justice. Such a sad little planet. He supposed they hadn’t even discovered money.

“We will exchange information,” said the Icon.

The High Judge laughed. “Is that your case? Come back when you have something more than just words.”

“If you allow us to speak with the Reach’s Science Director,” the Icon went on, unbothered, “then Green Lantern John Stewart will provide you with information about the Sinestro Corps.”

At this, the High Judge stilled. He considered them, all of them, but it was the Green Lantern who held his attention. The Warworld orbited Rimbor, yes, but by now the whole of the sector would know it was out of Rimbor’s control. Hardly a deterrent to would be world conquerors.

“And what do you know about the Sinestro Corps?”

“Plenty,” said the Green Lantern. He smiled grimly. “I know Sinestro.”

The High Judge rubbed at his nose, thinking as he did so of the tales he’d heard of the Sinestro Corps and what they had done to other peoples on other planets. They’d made a waste of more than one world.

“You will stay here,” he said abruptly, waving at the Green Lantern. “Your friends can speak with the Reach’s scientist while you tell my court about the Sinestro Corps.” He bellowed for the crier, and the crier came stumbling forth out of the shadows. 

“Have a guard escort these runts to the cells. And keep an eye on them,” he added. “Earthlings are not to be trusted.”

6

She heard their footsteps approach and did not rise from the floor of her small cell. What use? She knew who it would be. More of Rimbor’s pathetic half-wit scientists come to pant at her feet.

“You are late,” said Zet Si-Si. She did not open her eyes.

A chemical shock ran through the floor, and she convulsed, scrambling to get away from it. The same shock would be running through the walls, she knew that, but it was difficult to stop instinctive biological reactions to painful stimuli. She'd performed many experiments on many species and found this to be universal.

“You have visitors,” said the guard.

The shock receded. Zet Si-Si crouched, trembling, in the far corner with her back to the wall. Her claws ached. Even the vestigial proboscis in her throat hurt.

“You,” she said.

“Yeah,” said the little Earthling, “me! You remember me? But I’m wearing a different costume.” He plucked at the cloth at his neck.

“You humans all smell the same to me,” said Zet Si-Si. She narrowed her eyes at the taller, darker one. “But you are not human.”

“In all but the details,” he said. “We need to speak with you.”

The little one made to enter her cell and then, with a gasp, he jumped back, running his hands down his front.

“Oh, yes,” she said to him, “it’s very painful.”

“You are alone,” said the tall human.

She smiled. “As you can see. I’m afraid the rest of my hive was not as fortunate as me.”

“You’re all dead?” 

The little one. They were so noisome! Such ugly mouths. And so dull, too, she thought.

“As I have said.”

“Good,” said the small human.

She laughed at this. She could not help it.

“You’re ruthless for a human,” she said. “Is that why you’re here? To execute me? Rimbor will be very upset with you. They want me to help them advance their weapons technology but between you and me, it’s something of a lost cause. I try to tell them. They’re hardly capable of interstellar travel.”

“We’re not here to execute you,” said the small human, “even if you do deserve to be squished.”

“Yes,” she said, leaning back against the wall again, “I’ve heard this before. The usual mammalian prejudices.” 

She moved her hand restlessly over her neck. There were such silences in her head now. She had never known such silences. Was this how the humans lived, alone in their own insipid little skulls?

“We are not here to make threats, Kid Flash,” said the tall human.

He turned his face down. “I know,” he said, but he did not sound regretful. He sounded rather like the Warrior had when the Warrior had suggested they plant the magnetic field disruptors.

“Kid Flash,” said Zet Si-Si out loud, to shut up the incessant quiet outside of her head. “You died.”

“No,” said the little one. He gave her a hard look, and his face was thin. She knew that face, she thought, but she had never been good with faces. “My cousin died. Because of you guys, when you tried to destroy the Earth.”

“That was the Warrior’s idea,” she said. “He’s dead now. He wasn’t very bright.” She sighed. “His scarab was a true loss.”

The Kid Flash drew close to her cell again. She nearly expected he would brush up against the shield, but sadly he knew to keep a distance.

“Can a scarab crash?” he asked.

“Scarabs can go off-mode,” she said. “That was the trouble with the Blue Beetle. If the Ambassador had allowed me to scan it—” She thought again, idly, of how awful his death must have been, and she reveled in the thought of his misery. Even this isolation was worth that.

“But can it break?” The human made an odd movement of his hand, as in a circle. “Can it—freeze? Like a system failure? When a computer blue screens or an inhibitor collar goes on the fritz?”

She clicked the mandibles at the back of her mouth. This meant only that she was thinking of it, but the human looked at her as if he were repulsed. For one cold little moment that made her joints clench, she wished the Warrior’s idiot plan had worked and all the humans made dead. For her to be looked at so!

“The scarab was damaged,” she said. “I do not know to what extent. Magic polluted it. It interacted improperly with the host mind. Possibly its coding now contains fatal errors not present in a proper, functioning scarab.” She made another clicking noise. “I could not know without examining it.”

“If you examined it,” said Kid Flash, and he did not blink as he looked at her, “could you fix it?”

She waited for him to blink. He never did. How very unmammalian of him.

“The question you should ask,” said Zet Si-Si softly, “is would I fix it?”

The taller Earthling, for he was no human at all, spoke to the larva. “We cannot bring Blue Beetle to Rimbor. His condition is too uncertain.”

“The Zeta tubes—”

“It may not be safe to lower the Zeta shield. We will have to speak with the rest of the League,” said the taller one—Icon, she remembered. He had left Earth with the accused.

“If you should free me,” said Zet Si-Si, “I will fix the Blue Beetle.”

Kid Flash turned back to her. He was truly only a larva, she saw that, but he had the look if not the smell of someone older. And yet still just a child. There was a naked thing on his face, not for her but for the Blue Beetle.

“That’s enough,” said the guard. He came between them. “You will accompany me.”

“We’re not done talking,” the larva argued. “She can help us, she has to help us—she’s the probably the only person who can.”

Zet Si-Si leaned back into her corner and let her eyes close again. Already the silence was pressing against her. Terrible, to be so alone; but she thought, too, how nice it was that no one yelled at her for speaking. Perhaps she slept a great deal these days, but no matter. Without her hive to sustain her she would die soon enough.

It was a shame she could not examine the scarab, she thought. How fascinating it would have been.

The quiet consumed her.

7

“We have to take her with us,” Kid Flash argued.

Icon pressed his lips together. The impatience of many of the younger heroes exasperated him, and he thought then, as he had before, how Raquel would react to such a statement. She would, Icon thought somewhat wryly, volunteer to help Kid Flash break the scientist out of Rimbor’s labyrinthine prison.

“Not without possibly sparking an intergalactic incident,” Green Lantern Stewart replied. “And we’ve already had enough of those thanks to Vandal Savage. The last thing we need is a real charge.”

“Can’t we just buy the court off?” Kid Flash paced along the strip of sidewalk outside the court building. “That’s how these guys work, right? I heard from Miss Martian, they take bribes to make decisions, so if we just bribe them—”

“ _We_ do not _make_ bribes,” said John firmly. “It’s our duty to ensure justice, even when other people don’t care. Especially when they don’t care.”

Kid Flash threw his hands up. “This isn’t justice! The only reason Rimbor’s keeping her alive is because they want her to help them make, make better weapons.”

“It isn’t our place to intervene in Rimbor’s justice system,” said Icon, but John was looking up at the court building with his shoulders squared.

“Besides,” said John, “there’s no way we could bust her out of there without being seen doing it.”

Kid Flash followed John’s gaze. Icon had a creeping feeling starting up at the small of his back, the sort of dread certainty he’d known on many occasions with Raquel. It was the feeling that things had begun to slip away from him.

“Yeah,” said Kid Flash thoughtfully, “I guess not. It would be really hard to get her away with all those cameras and motion sensors and that force field.”

“No way I could get through that,” John agreed.

“John,” said Icon.

“I’m just thinking out loud,” said John.

“Guy Gardner thinks out loud,” said Icon.

“I bet,” said Kid Flash slowly, “that force field’s triggered by motion sensors. You’d have to move so fast it couldn’t even pick you up to get through it.”

“Are you translating this?” Icon demanded of John, and John only shook his head once. “Good. Because we are still outside of their court building.”

“It was only theoretical,” said John mildly.

Icon sighed and pinched his nose. Kids. He’d barely survived Raquel.

“Rendezvous at the port,” he said. “We’ll leave from there.”

“Sure,” said Kid Flash. “I just have to run a quick errand.” And then he vanished.

“You had better hope he’s fast enough,” Icon said to John as they lifted off.

“He’s a good kid,” John said.

Icon sighed. The street fell away from them, and they accelerated, John hanging back to keep pace with Icon. He must be getting old, he thought dryly, but all he said was,

“They’re all good kids, John.”

He didn’t want to see any of them die so soon, again. He’d already outlived too many good people.

8

Zet Si-Si had the oddest sensation of colors whipping around her, of smells gone before she’d catalogued them. And then she was set down on her feet in a place she did not know. A space port—she recognized the shuttle.

“I got you out,” said the little human, “so now you have to fix Jaime.”

A green bubble closed around them. They were not alone. Icon was at her back, and there—that was a Green Lantern.

“Sslckcht,” she spat at the Lantern.

“I’ve heard worse,” he said.

The space port faded. The stars rapidly approached. She turned her ire on the small human.

“And if I do not help your useless friend?”

“You’ll help him,” said Kid Flash.

“Or you will squish me?” she asked in a mocking tone. She had gotten so very good at those. The Ambassador had made it easy for her to practice such tones in her lab. She would die sooner or later.

“No,” said the larva. “I won’t. Heroes don’t do that.”

“Do you think I care what you do?” She lifted her face. She was of the Reach, after all. Perhaps Zet Si-Si had not been an ambassador or a warrior, but she had her dignity.

“Blue Beetle needs your help,” said Kid Flash. “You helped make him. That means he’s part of your hive.”

She was very still. She let the words break against her. She could have told him that the scarabs had no hives. They were made to function apart, to think without others, to live in isolation.

The stars shone weirdly through the Green Lantern’s protective bubble. They were not the stars she had known when she had crawled weakly out of her egg, her caste already given to her. She had been glad for her hive, she supposed, long before she had known enough to despise it. Zet Si-Si had never been apart from the hive.

“I will help your Blue Beetle,” she said, looking to the stars as they passed her by. She knew these stars, too. They did not know her.

“Thank you,” said the larva quietly. He meant it, too.

She would have laughed, but she was thinking of how this weak and fleshy thing must love the Blue Beetle. So many species spoke of love, of desire, of family. Love made them do reckless things. They gave up even their selfishness, their lack of hive-bond, for love. She wondered if it was love that she had felt in the hive, if the bond that had run through her hive had been love; then she dismissed the thought. It was genetic coding, a necessity for the species’ survival. The Reach thrived because they did not love.

“Do not thank me,” she said. She said that to the stars, too. “What I do, I do for my own purposes.”

The larva looked away. He folded his arms, as if he were cold. Zet Si-Si was always cold now.

“I’m still grateful,” he said.

“Then you are a fool,” said Zet Si-Si, and she turned her back to them all. She did not want them. She did not hate them either. She only wished to watch the stars, so many of them, like eggs scattered throughout the cold vacuum.

9

“What,” said Captain Atom first thing, “have you done?” He stared at the Reach scientist, behind Icon and Green Lantern.

“Um,” said Bart, “I can explain,” and then because he couldn’t think of any possible way to explain it without jeopardizing Jaime’s chances anymore than they’d already been jeopardized, he added, “uh, later. It's not Green Lantern's fault! Or Icon's!” and he scooped the scientist up again. 

She clutched at his throat and made a noise like a cockroach hissing – Bart had crushed enough of those things under his heel while slaving away for the Reach to know that sound even in his best dreams, of which he had nowhere near enough – and Bart poured on the speed. Maybe she’d meant it when she said she’d help Jaime. He still didn’t want to hold onto her any longer than he had to.

The medical bay was on the fourth floor, in the center ring. If any of the external airlocks blew, the medical bay would have enough time to seal its own locks and enough air to keep going for eight hours. If something breached the medical bay from inside—but he’d decided to trust her, and he was going to trust her.

Miss Martian had stayed with Jaime. Her hand was on his face, her fingertips framing his brow, her thumb at his temple. Her eyes were closed. Bart slowed and set the scientist carefully down on her feet by the bed. She put a steadying hand on his shoulder; then she snatched it away.

“I brought someone to help,” Bart said.

Miss Martian opened her eyes. “Bart,” she said, then her face went hard—the kindness went out of it like a light turning off—and she turned on them both. The softness of her cheeks had gone sharp.

“No, look,” he said hastily, “she’s working for us, for now, to fix Jaime. If the scarab’s busted then she’s the only person who can make it work again. She’s the only one who knows how to do it.”

“We do not work with the bad guys,” said Miss Martian.

“That’s not true,” Bart said. “What about Lex Luthor? He helped us shut down the magnetic field disruptors.”

Miss Martian’s eyes tightened. “The magnetic field disruptors the Reach planted.”

“That was not my idea,” said the scientist.

“You still let it happen!”

“Please,” Bart said, and he knew his voice was raw now; he didn’t care. He hadn’t wanted to look at Jaime again, lying so still there in the bed with his hands turned up to the ceiling and his eyes shut. Jaime’s breathing rasped. That was the oxygen, forced down his throat.

“Can’t you read her mind?” he pleaded. “Find out if she’s telling the truth. Keep an eye on her. But we have to save Jaime. I—”

That was too close to his own truth. He swallowed it.

Miss Martian pressed her lips together; then she touched her hand to the scientist’s hand and her eyes flared green. The scientist made to draw back but stilled. Her face screwed up and then went as slack as Jaime’s. It was Jaime Bart watched. 

Bart knew that when people dreamed their eyes moved sometimes, but Jaime’s eyes did not. An ugly fear wormed through Bart. He’d come back to save everyone, but Wally had died. Now Jaime was limp, beyond even dreams. Bart touched Jaime’s hand. The skin was cool, chilled by the air conditioning in the medical bay. So Bart rubbed his hand over Jaime’s, careful to do it slowly, so that Jaime’s cold skin warmed and didn’t peel from the friction.

Then Miss Martian sighed. The glow faded from her eyes.

“She’s telling the truth,” she said. Some little thing made her hesitate; then she hardened again. “But I’m going to watch you.”

“As you will,” said the scientist. She stepped briskly around the bed to the head. “I will need to see his back to access the scarab.”

Miss Martian stretched out her hand and Jaime sat up. The tube leading to his throat pulled, and she maneuvered him so that it did not. Jaime’s head hung forward. His hair curled slightly over his ears. He’d been growing it out. Bart’s fingers itched. Focus, he thought.

The scientist made a humming sound. “And I require tools.”

There was a toolbox in an access closet down the hall. Bart brought that back to her and opened it, showing the contents to her. 

“Is this enough?”

She ran her hand over the tools and then took the toolbox from him and set it on the pillow. The pillow was still creased with the weight of Jaime’s head.

“And something with a screen.”

“I can provide that,” said Miss Martian. Her eyes glimmered again.

The scientist shuddered and touched her own head.

“Can you help him now?” Bart asked, leaning toward her and looking at Jaime’s back as she looked at it, exposed by the hospital gown.

“I will try,” said the scientist. She glared at him. “Now be quiet. I do not require distractions.”

Bart mimed zipping his mouth, but she was no longer paying attention to him. A screen only she could see occupied her. The scientist did something to the scarab with her hand that opened it. The wings parted. The guts rose out of it. She lifted a very fine knife out of the toolbox. 

Miss Martian was watching the scientist. Bart would watch Jaime. He went around to stand at Jaime’s side, to look up into his face. Jaime’s eyelashes were long and black, almost sooty against his dark cheeks. His eyelids were still.

Bart whispered, so he wouldn’t disturb Miss Martian. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you fell.” He traced Jaime’s palm: the lifeline, the fat pad at the bottom of his thumb, the slight curl of each finger. “But I found someone who can help you. I guess when you crashed the mode, you crashed it a little too hard.”

“Quiet,” snapped the scientist.

So the rest of it, Bart kept to his own brain. If it weren’t for Jaime’s regular breathing and for the beeping of the heart monitor, he could have imagined Jaime dead. Bart rubbed Jaime’s hand again. He thought, I came back for you. He’d come back for lots of people, but mostly he’d come back for Jaime. To stop Jaime, he’d thought at first; but then it had been for Jaime.  You’re the best person I’ve ever known, he thought at Jaime. 

He kept waiting for Jaime’s fingers to curl around his, like they had in the ruins in Bialya when Jaime had slapped Bart’s hand. Jaime had smiled at him there in the shadows and he had, for a moment, gripped Bart’s fingers before he’d let go. Bart’s heart had skipped three beats and then settled down, but he’d remembered the weight and warmth of Jaime’s hand a lot longer than just three missed heartbeats.

Bart clung to Jaime’s hand and stared up into Jaime’s dreamless face and waited for Jaime’s heart to skip.

10

Khaji Da (Scarab) status: activated. Sensory feeds nonresponsive. Activated by Dan Garrett (Human)? Negative. Dan Garrett (Human) deceased. Khaji Da (Scarab) status: inert in possession of Ted Kord (Human). Ted Kord (Human) deceased.

Host: Jaime Reyes (Human). Jaime Reyes (Human) alive. Supposition: the host is damaged. Jaime Reyes (Human) damaged. How is Jaime Reyes damaged? Unable to access information. Jaime Reyes damaged. Supposition: unable to establish connection with central nervous system of Jaime Reyes. Connection attempted. Connection already established. Connection not severed; continuous. 

Supposition: unable to establish connection with central nervous system of Jaime Reyes; negative. Khaji Da (Scarab) still connected to host: Jaime Reyes (Friend). Jaime Reyes safe (unverified).

Supposition: Jaime Reyes is damaged; negative. Supposition: Khaji Da (Scarab) is damaged. How is Khaji Da (Scarab) damaged? Unable to access information. Unable to perform diagnostics. Unable. Unable. Unable. Unable. Unable.

Sensory feeds nonresponsive. Activated by Dan Garrett (Human)? Negative. Dan Garrett (Human) deceased. Khaji Da (Scarab) ineRRRRRRRR

Khaji Da (Scarab) status: soft reset. Unable to perform start-up. Repairs required. Unable to perform diagnostics. Unable. Unable. Unab

Khaji Da (Scarab) status: soft reset. 

COMMAND: PROGRAM ACCESS: ZET SI-SI OVERRIDE. STATUS.

Khaji Da (Scarab) status: damaged. Repair. Repair. Repair. Jaime Reyes safe (unverified). Jaime Reyes safe (unverified). Jaime Reyes safe (unverified). Verify. Verify. Verify. Establishing connection with host.

11

The snow whites everything out. Jaime holds on to Milagro’s hand. She tries to pull away from him.

“Don’t go,” he says. “Don’t go. Milagro. Hermanita.”

“Let go!” she says. “I wanna go in! I wanna go in!”

Her voice is very far away. If he doesn’t hold on to her, the snow will take her, too.

“You have to stay with me,” he shouts across the distance, through the droning snow that falls between them. His fingers ache. “Milagro, please. I have to protect you.”

“No, you don’t!”

“Yes, I do!” he yells at her. He clutches tightly to her fingers, but they’re slipping away. “You’re my baby sister. I have to protect you. I have to protect—I have to protect everyone.”

“I wanna go in,” Milagro says, and then she’s gone. The snow rips her from him. Then it rips her apart.

Jaime is in the living room. His face is turned up to the TV. Milagro is sitting next to him with a coloring book open in front of her. She’s holding a blue crayon.

“It sure is a whopper!” says Cat Grant. A map of the continental USA is behind her, covered in cartoon snow showers.

“That means it’s grandísimo,” Jaime says to Milagro.

She frowns up at him. “I didn’t say.” 

“Look at this!” Mom cries out. She’s standing by the window, Dad at her back with his arm around her waist. They’re both looking up to the sky. Mom says, “Ay, tan extraño—what are they?”

“No, never,” says Dad.

“It must be two feet of snow,” says Mom.

Dad says, “Maybe they’re from Clovis, in New Mexico. Some experimental aircraft.”

“They look like bugs,” Milagro says, but she’s looking at her coloring book.

“What are you coloring?” 

Jaime pulls the book away from her. Milagro doesn’t fuss. His chest hurts. So does his head. Milagro always fusses.

“I’m coloring Blue Beetle,” says Milagro. She rubs the crayon back and forth over the carpet as if she’s filling in lines.

“This isn’t Blue Beetle,” Jaime says, staring down at the coloring book. “Blue Beetle has big goggles and a laser gun.” 

The thing Milagro was coloring looked like some huge bug, with two things sticking up from the back like, like a mountain climber’s backpack. No. Like wings. His stomach swoops, like Jaime has wings.

“Are they going to hurt us?” Mom asks.

Dad shakes his head. “The Justice League will protect us. Superman, he’s a good man.”

“I’m going out,” Milagro announces. She drops her crayon. It spills blue ink all over the floor. The blue gets on Jaime’s hands. He can’t shake it off.

“Not without your jackets!” Mom calls. “Jaime—help your sister with her jacket—”

But Milagro is already out the door. Jaime goes after her. He has to look after her. She’s his baby sister. It’s his job to protect her.

He gets outside and it’s snowing, but he isn’t cold at all. A terrible shadow falls over him. There’s an enormous thing in the sky, a ship like a bug just floating there.

“Jaime,” Milagro shouts. “Jaime!”

She grabs his hands, but they aren’t his hands. His palms are black like he thinks the bottom of the ocean must be like, but his fingertips are white like snow.

“Go inside,” Jaime says. “Milagro, go inside, be good—”

She smiles up at him, and it isn’t her incisor that’s missing, but the second premolar on the bottom left side of her mouth. She lost that tooth a month ago. She was ten. She is ten.

“I have to protect you,” Jaime says, staring at that gap in her teeth. “I have to—I have to protect—everyone—”

“See ya later, alligator,” Milagro says, sticking her tongue out at him; and then she runs back to the front door through the summer grass.

Jaime touches his head; he cradles it. He feels as if his brain is pounding.

_ Jaime Reyes, _ says a harsh voice in his head, but it’s a good voice, he knows this voice—

_ It is time to wake up. _

His hand is very warm, like someone is holding it. He remembers, like remembering a dream mostly forgotten, someone kissing the corner of his mouth very lightly. “I’ll be back in a flash,” they’d said just as lightly in his ear.

Jaime wakes up.

12

Bart had rested his forehead on the edge of the bed. His hand was sweating, clasping Jaime’s, but he wouldn’t move it. If he moved it, he thought he really would lose Jaime. Sweat was only sweat.

He could build another time machine, but Neutron had done most of the programming. Bart could guess at some of it but not all. Going back once had been a risk anyway; if he went back a second time—if he overshot it—there was no guarantee he could stop the Reach a second time. No guarantee the scarab wouldn’t crash again. Bart squeezed Jaime’s hand tightly. I’ll do it, he thought, I’ll do it, I’ll-do-it-I’ll-do-it-I’ll-do-it—

Jaime’s fingers moved weakly. He felt it like a shiver running through his skin. Like a shock as he walked into a force field he hadn’t seen, hadn’t known to vibrate through.

Bart lifted his head. He did it slowly he thought, but his brain rushed as if he’d snapped it up too quickly even for him.

Jaime blinked sluggishly. His eyelids drooped, but his eyes moved, moved till he spotted Bart there beside him, still holding his hand. Then Jaime smiled, and Bart’s heart was racing; it was skipping; he felt suddenly faint, like he couldn’t breathe or he wasn’t breathing. Bart sucked in a breath.

“He’s awake,” said Miss Martian with relief. “He’s there—I can hear him.”

The Reach scientist dropped her tools and knelt. She was shivering.

“I need,” she said, “I need to rest—”

“Thank you,” Bart said, “thank you, thank-you-thank-you-thank-you—”

Coldly the scientist said, “Do not thank me,” and then Miss Martian caught her as she fell. 

“I’ll take care of her,” said Miss Martian, not kindly but not cruelly either. “She deserves a bed at least. Can you take care of Blue Beetle?”

Jaime was already clawing at the oxygen mask strapped to his mouth. He was shaking, too, and sweating now, as he had when Bumblebee and the Atom had tried to extract the scarab from him.

“I got him,” Bart said. He pulled the mask off, trying to be gentle, but he wanted it off; he wanted it gone; he wanted to see Jaime again.

“Ow,” said Jaime, wincing as the elastic snapped his cheek. “Watch it, Bart—I like my ears where they are.”

“You’re okay? You’re really okay?”

Bart knew to keep his hands to himself. He’d never been that good at it when it came to Jaime, even if he tried, but now he didn’t try at all. His fingers brushed Jaime’s cheeks, Jaime’s jaw, his brow, every contour of his face.

“Yeah,” said Jaime, “I’m 100% crash,” and he smiled, and maybe the smile was weak, but it was there, and Bart could have kissed him, he could have grabbed on to Jaime and never let go—but he knew better than to do that. 

He didn’t want to let go. He had to let go. Jaime’s breath was warm on Bart’s mouth. Bart began to pull away.

Then Jaime lifted his hand—the IV line was caught in his elbow—and he set it on Bart’s wrist, holding Bart’s hand to his cheek so Bart couldn’t pull it away. Not if Jaime wanted his hand there. Bart couldn’t blink. He didn’t dare.

“Man,” said Jaime, “was with that line back there—back in a flash? You know how corny that line is?”

“It’s a family heirloom?” Bart offered. His eyes hurt, but they weren’t dry.

Softly, Jaime said, “I think I owe you.”

Bart shook his head and shrugged, too. Jaime rubbed the side of Bart’s first finger with his own fingertip. Even through Bart’s glove, that little touch burned.

“I think you’ve saved my life enough times,” Bart said with a hitch. “We’re even.”

And Jaime smiled again. His tired eyes creased.

“Not for that,” he said, and he clutched Bart’s wrist and pulled Bart forward. Bart grunted and fell against Jaime and he looked up to ask Jaime what he was doing—then Jaime kissed him on the cheek.

His lips were dry and cold, but they were his lips. Bart’s heart hummed. Jaime’s heart was humming, too. The monitor beeped that at him.

Bart said, “Oh. Oh! How’d you know! That was a secret!”

“It must’ve come to me in a dream,” said Jaime.

“You were in a coma!” Bart accused.

“Yeah,” said Jaime, “which makes it a little weird. So next time we do that we’re both going to be not comatose.”

“I thought you were going to die,” Bart said, and maybe that was a little dramatic, but it was also the truth. Now that he’d said it out loud, it washed through him like a flood, and he’d thought it before but he hadn’t said it, hadn’t said that he’d thought it, he’d really thought it, it hadn’t just been a possibility—

“All right,” said Jaime. His thumb brushed the back of Bart’s wrist. “So—I guess we can make an at death’s door amendment if it comes up again in the future—”

But Bart cut him off before he could say anything else. Jaime laughed, and that was tired, too, but that was also Jaime, and he was alive, he was alive, Bart was finally kissing him and Jaime was finally kissing him back, and Jaime was alive, he was _alive_ , and his hands were on Bart's shoulders and his mouth was so very warm. Alive, Bart thought; then all he thought of was Jaime.

**Author's Note:**

> Here are some notes for ~background universe details~ because, much like season two of Young Justice, I feel like I need to throw in a bunch of crap never explained in canon:
> 
> \+ "Pepidi" is basically Vulgar (Lay, not crude) Latin for "piss." It's the sort of thing I figure Atlanteans would use as a cuss word.
> 
> \+ Katma Tui was John Stewart's wife. She's a Green Lantern from Korugar (the same planet Sinestro came from), and she trained John Stewart before they married. In the comics she was murdered ignobly in the kitchen (DC, what is your deal with killing off women in the kitchen? Ya sexist jerks!) mostly to make Hal Jordan sad. Let's just pretend here that she died in the line of duty wrecking some shit and in wrecking said shit, she saved the galaxy. GOOD JOB KILLING OFF A LADY, ANNA!!!
> 
> \+ November 11, 2010, is, of course, the day Vertigo had all the ice villains blow snow all over the USA in a bid to cost Queen Perdita her new heart.
> 
> \+ The Sinestro Corps was founded by former Green Lantern Sinestro (aforementioned) and it is powered by fear. Their associated color is yellow.
> 
> \+ I made up the Reach scientist's name, as you do. And yet I did not see fit to give the judge a name! Oh, well. Maybe he doesn't have a name. He just likes being called Judge. LIKE DREDD!* 
> 
> \+ Icon aka August Freeman IV (son of August Freeman III, etc, all the way up to Arnus, all of whom are also Icon) is, like Superman, an alien raised from infancy on Earth. He is much, much older than Superman, though, having been raised by slaves in the USAmerican South prior to the Civil War. Hence he has outlived many of the people he has loved throughout the years.
> 
> \+ The previous Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, had big ol' yellow goggles and he carried a gun that made a big ol' flash of light. Ted Kord, everybody. (I miss ya, buddy.)
> 
> \+ I can't think of anything else!!! WHY DID I PUT OFF WRITING THIS THING UNTIL THE DAY OF THE PROMPT!!! _I HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN EVERY DAY THIS WEEK!!!_
> 
> *I don't know what Judge Dredd likes to be called. Sorry to any Dreddheads out there. Ya know I love ya!!


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